Skip to content

Category: Transforming Pain

On Feeling Empty Inside

Published on May 25, 2024

I finished uploading quotes from The Prophet today (you can read my 18 favorites here).

My overall favorite is one that echoes an idea I got tattooed on my arm—which is of a majestic exposed roots tree that reminds me that the branches of happiness can only go as high as the roots of sadness go deep. The line from The Prophet goes:

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Page 27)

…Which, I found to be another powerful, analogous way to look at and move through sorrow. Because it really does feel like a carving away at your being… which I think is where the descriptions of feeling “empty” or “hollow” or “dead” inside might come from.

But, with that emptiness… with that space… comes a future opportunity.

And it may not happen that day nor may it happen a week or a month after. But, eventually, that space that was carved from sorrow can become precisely the vessel needed to contain more of the opposite… more joy… more wonder… more love… and quite possibly even more than you had room to carry (or could fully appreciate) before.

Human Reboots

Published on May 23, 2024

It’s human to want to shut down after a painful experience.

It’s almost as though the magnitude of open processes that hard times bring forth can cause an overwhelm that throttles our internal ability to get anything/everything else done—like how a computer creeps to a halt when we have too many applications, tabs, and background processes open.

…What you can usually do automatically you can’t even get started on; what usually takes ten minutes suddenly takes an hour; what usually feels fun and easygoing feels frustratingly heavy and obligatory.

What’s important during times like this is to recognize the situation for what it is—a time when your system needs to reboot.

…Because trudging onward when your mind is spinning that rainbow-thinking-wheel-of-death isn’t to choose onward at all—it’s completely counterproductive.

What’s needed is a reset. What’s needed is time and space to power down. What’s needed is a clearing of everything that’s already open in the mind—not a stubborn press forward that only continues to open (and throttle) more and more.

One Week Later

Published on May 22, 2024

Welp, at the one week mark, I’m slowly starting to adjust to and accept my new normal.

I’m slowly starting to expect her less when I open the door. I’m slowly starting to leave gates open and no longer blocking rooms off that I want to keep her out of. I’m slowly remembering I don’t need to open the back door when I get out of the shower each morning and that I don’t need to stop by the cupboard before I leave to work and that I don’t need to rush home after work to let her out.

Sometimes it happens automatically—as a programmed response from years of repetition.

And I know that before long, new programmed responses will take their place and these old habits will fade alongside her memory. And I’m learning to be okay with that.

What I’m choosing to deliberately keep, however, are the evening walks. This is the one habit that she helped me adopt that I feel would properly honor her memory if I kept. And each night, after I get home from work, I follow the same route we used to follow and try to carry her legacy with me. One that doesn’t rush. One that stops and smells the roses (or the pee in her case). One that is always grateful to be out… walking… experiencing… being.

P.s. I tagged all of the 1-minute pieces I’ve written that were inspired by Stella over the years. You can read the collection here.

Heaviness Serves A Purpose

Published on May 21, 2024

With heaviness comes slowness, naturally.

And one lesson I’m trying to absorb is that of acceptance—the one that doesn’t fight reality or curse the resistance, but relaxes into the moment for what it is and tries to instead move forward with whatever it presents.

And if heaviness is what I’ve been given, then maybe slowness is how I’m supposed to respond… so that I might stop fighting and cursing and rushing around from place to place and can start intentionally noticing, settling, and feeling instead.

How To Honor Lost Loved Ones

Published on May 20, 2024

One of the best things I think we can do to honor the ones we have lost is create a space where we can regularly bring them to mind and then carry with us the best of their life’s legacy—acting as a vehicle of sorts—so as to continue their and elevate our influence in the world.

It’s almost as though we’re opening the doors to our car each morning and letting them in… the best versions of all of our lost loved ones… so that we can carry them with us throughout our day(s)—rather than rushing from our homes late, flustered, and absent-minded.

…From some we might carry with us their legacy of patience, from others we might bring their legacy of love and kindness, and from others maybe we bring their legacy of strength or humor or resilience—but from each… we bring something.

…Leaving us filled with their memory rather than void from their absence and allowing them (and us) to continue interacting positively and constructively with the world.

Inner work prompt: Bring to mind a lost loved one. Meditate on their life and condense their legacy into a word or lesson you can carry with you today… and maybe every day after as well.

The Thought That Counts

Published on May 18, 2024

My instinctual response when I’m sad/grieving is “That’s okay… I’m fine… Thank you though.”

It’s what I’ll say when people ask if there’s anything they can do… if there’s anything I need… if I want company or conversation or food or distractions or hugs…

I’m not entirely sure why, but maybe it’s because I want to feel and deal with the weight of it all on my own… maybe it’s because I’m introverted and simply don’t have it in me to expend any more energy being with others at that time… maybe it’s because I don’t want to inconvenience others and/or bring them into the wave of emotion I’m helplessly immersed in… maybe it’s all of the above mixed together… or maybe it’s none and I’m just trying to put on a facade of strength…

And while I genuinely mean it (and believe it) when I say, “It’s okay…” “I’ll be fine…” “Thank you so much for thinking of me, though…” I also must say that I’d be way more sad/broken without the offers, thoughts, and/or sentiments at all.

In this case… it really is the thought that counts.

Thank you—to all those who have been thinking of me during this tough time.

The Heaviest It’ll Be

Published on May 16, 2024

I’m still heavy in my feels about Stella.

I don’t want to write about something else. I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to accept this new reality.

Whenever I do something distractionary, I feel fogged and heavy.

Whenever I rise from my chair or open the living room gate, I feel a nagging absence.

And whenever I think I’ve cried all I could cry—something arbitrary will make me cry some more.

This is the nature of grief.

No sense to be made. No lessons to be applied. No explanation that’ll do.

Just the weight of it all.

…And the understanding that this weight, now and in every bit of its crushing form, is the heaviest it’ll be.